My mother tended her first yield tender,with slender fingers interlocked in a cradleplaced over her ripe stomach,the calluses raised from farm labor serving as little pillows for her son.

The first time she felt the quake underneath her fleshthe little feet, the kicking feet that would someday hold up a manshe whispered his name,Masahiro, Masahiro.The son rising in the east to reflect her soul.

But dawn broke too early,stretching its scarlet, wet arms over her underwear,spitting defiance in a rush of water soaking her feet.On the way to the hospital,she clutched her splitting stomach,screaming and pleading to the impatient babe,Too soon, too soon!But he was too much Icarus;too eager to reach the light.

Finally, when the doctors extracted what was inside her,she heard no sound of a baby boy crying,only a beeping monitor tracking the beat of an incessant heart,her heartalone. Let me see him.With cold hands, the doctors presented the spoiled fruit, the bloody pulp, and she, like Daedalus, gazed upon her melted son,filling the hollows of her body,his fetal grave, with remorse.

Twenty-five years later, on melancholy nights,when the rain runs tear tracks down window panes,when his kicking feet retrace phantom paths,when his name echoes in her womb,she says to me, without ever meeting my eyes,

Thank you so much for all your wonderful comments and critiques. I wasn't expecting to ever earn a DD. I've been carrying the concept for this poem around in my head for over a year, and I'm so flattered, so bewildered, so indescribably elated by all the support. Thank you again <3

The entire sentence doesn't make sense, if he died his feet wouldn't be able to retrace anything. It should be more along the lines of "when the ghostly kicking feet retrace the past" or something to that affect. Regardless, I get the point and the poem is beautiful. It definitely brought a tear to my eye as I know what it is like for your unborn child to die. There is no pain in the world that could compare.

Wow. So powerful, this capture of raw emotion... I actually closed my eyes when I read the last line, and just let out a long, slow breath. Very intense, and the crafting of this is just remarkable. Very well done.

One of the most beautiful powerful moving amazing saddest and emotionally charged poems I've ever read. Touched me in a personal way, I know what it's like to have Icarus for a brother. DD is very well deserved, congratulations.